


The Scientist

by Chaneladdict



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies), Wintershock - Fandom
Genre: Bucky knows this, Darcy has balls of steel it's a pity her phone isn't made of steel, Darcy sucks at stealth, F/M, Minds are muddled, Poor phone, RIP Phone, Sarcasm, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-19
Updated: 2014-07-19
Packaged: 2018-02-09 13:50:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1985274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chaneladdict/pseuds/Chaneladdict
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Darcy is better suited to a lab where she can’t get attached to strays!</p>
<p>‘You’re the most likely to pass unnoticed among us,’ they said.</p>
<p>‘It’ll be easy,’ they said.</p>
<p>‘Just report back what you see, that’s all,’ they said.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Scientist

For a first mission it was, on paper at least, an easy one. Learn to track and monitor a target. Not so difficult. Except the target being who it was made it a thousand times more difficult. She was pretty sure she sucked at this.

With any and all inclinations she had had about entering SHIELD as an ‘agent’ of any kind was swiftly chucked out the window when she was pretty sure she’d been made ten minutes into her op.

She was science, she wasn’t stealth.

Any pipe-dream notions she had that said otherwise were lies.

“I do comms, I do tech, I do science and discovery, I do not do stealth, Cap.” She said via text when Steve had contacted her asking how her third day was going. She had to sass him, it was part of their routine now, and nothing would convince her that underneath the stoic Cap status was someone who appreciated her wit, though she just had to wear him down.

“Going fine, same as yesterday same as the day before. You know, for a guy that’s running from you all, he’s not doing a very good job of it. I mean, he’s right here, looking all kinds of hobo saddo.”

And he was which surprised her. She assumed someone of his status would be a little more … hard to find. But from what she knew, they had ‘found’ him they just didn’t want to spook him. She understood that, anyone that was officially SHIELD wore that scary government look from a mile off, and given what he’d been through, she fully appreciated why they’d send her. The most civilian looking of them all had been something she overheard. One could take it as an insult, but given the droid looking weirdos she saw roaming the halls at Shield slashnot Shield slash Is the really Hydra who the hell do we actually work for slash Oops Now we work at Avengers Tower… at times it was hard for her to even keep up.

By her fourth day, she was in all honesty starting to get a little bored, and at this point was more than sure he’d made her. He wasn’t being as subtle as before, in fact when he walked right past her, bumping into her and somehow stealing her cell phone. Yeah that was a pretty big clue that she’d been made.

So, swallowing her pride and possibly her sanity, going against every order that specified her to ‘not engage with the target under any circumstances’. She wasn’t doing a very good job either way and longed to go back to her little lab of safety, pipe dreams be damned. But, she sighed, either way she looked at it, it was a bust. He knew, she knew, they’d know soon enough.

She approached him at the exhibit, where he’d come the three days in a row since she’d been trailing him, he’d got in somehow without setting off the security, and day two told her how.

Fucker was spry for a ninety five year old brainwashed hobo; he used roof access and strolled in like he owned the place.

“Gimme back my phone.” Not the world’s best opener, but there was no point in beating around the bush at this point.

He didn’t look at her or speak instead continued to look at … well… himself.

He was handsome back then, in that old school kind of way, all chiselled jaw and parted hair and pretty eyes. The story – everyone knew the story of Bucky Barnes and Steve Rogers, even before Steve was found and defrosted, the legend was well known.

“Dude, I know you aren’t deaf and I know you know why I’m here so, just…”

“You’re terrible at this, can I just say?” he said with a small grin that disappeared as he turned to her, her now crushed cell phone in his gloved hand.

Right, metal arm.

Fuck.

Fucker! He broke her phone!

“I …”

“Really terrible, who the hell is training you? They’re also terrible if they deemed you field ready.”

“Look –“

“Here. Now go.” He handed her the crushed phone, little use it was to her now! And dismissed her.

Should she leave? The sane thing would be to call it a day and leave, but then again Darcy wasn’t exactly sure of what to do at this point, her gut told her to stay. Her superiors told her that if she’d been made, he was a possible danger and to get out of there ASAP. But this guy, this lost looking, unshaven, hobo ex killing machine… well he didn’t scare her. He pissed her off, with his judgement and his phone breaking habits. Like who the hell did he think –

“You’re still here…”

“Yeah.”

“Why?” Again without looking at her.

“You know, I’m not sure.”

Silence.

“So you know they know where you are, right?”

“They? Hydra?” He bristled but still didn’t look at her.

“No, Shield or whatever they’re called now. I guess it’s still Shield just -”

“They, not ‘we’ ? Is that not who sent you here? Who has been sending you all week?”

She just rolled her eyes, she moved up closer to him, and man, the hobo look wasn’t just for aesthetics.

“Technically I’m a scientist.”

That got his attention.

He looked her over, painfully slowly from what seemed like every hair on her head right down to her toes. She ignored the goose bumps that ran up her arms as he did.

“Science. You’re here because … for science?” he asked incredulously, before moving on to the Steve Rogers part of the exhibit.

“Sort of, but not really. It was my first observing mission.”

She swore he head him chuckle, but wasn’t so sure as his face didn’t betray him as he looked forward, seemingly reading all about his best friend turned failed mission.

“And how’d that go?” he asked as they moved again, this time to post-serum Captain America and all that that entailed.

“Not so great, to be honest the mark is a bit of a smartass. I mean I’m meant to be all afraid of him, which, you know, I kind of am, I’m not that stupid. But, otherwise, he just seems to be minding his own business for the most part, no life threatening ideas towards a certain ex mission or anything…you know, as far as I can tell anyway.”

He looked at her then, pushing past her once more before speaking.

“You should go home, Miss Lewis, really.”

She watched as he made his way through the hordes of people, but she wasn’t going to let him off that easy. She watched him go the way he’d gone for the past few days, and she knew she’d cut him off in the alley. And she did. Catching up just as he rounded the corner, no sign that she had startled him, except for a sigh.

“I told you to go home.”

“I know.”

“So go!”

“I want to, believe me but I can’t.”

“I’m sure they’ll understand, say… say I threatened you or something. Say you feared for your life.”

With that she probably did the most stupid thing she’d done in the past week, she reached out and touched him.

He flinched stepping back.

“Sorry, I just…”

“Do you want me to threaten you?” He looked confused, more so now than before, but the pain in his eyes deepened as he held onto the arm that dared to touch him.

“No?”

“No, neither do I so just do us both a favour and –“

“How’d you know my name?” She wasn’t sure where it came from but there it was.

He sighed again, this time looking both up and down the narrow alley.

“While you were tracking me, I was tracking you, but I’m better.”

She pursed her lips at that; yeah he was no need to rub it in.

Before she could speak again, he spoke; or rather his stomach did in a loud embarrassing rumble.

“Are you hungry?” She asked, and knew the answer even though he passionately denied it.

“Look, Buc-“ before she finished his name his eyes widened, as if she’d struck him with a whip – she decided on a different choice of name –“ Dude, look I live not far from here and –

“

“No.”

“All I’m saying is there’s a place without people, it has food, it has a shower, and it has you know… me.” She tried to smile, to be charming and normal but she wasn’t those things on a good day, and this was a really bad day.

He shook his head then, closing his eyes as if he were in pain.

“I … no. Can’t.”

“Look either way I can’t contact them… you mangled my baby remember?”

“Your baby?”

She held up her smashed phone.

“Your words for such devices are…strange.”

“Yeah, well,” she sighed. “That’s me, strange. So from one stranger weirdo to, let’s be honest, another? You’d be welcome to clean up back there or we could get food near here –“

“No I’ve been here too long I need to –“he looked past her, like he was going to make a run for it.

It made sense he wasn’t staying in one place too long, it was how she lost him every day, he slinked away like a cat, no tracks, nothing. She really wanted to know how do to that.

She thought about using her Taser on him, or the widow’s bite that Nat had given her to disarm his arm, but she wanted to use neither on him. This guy, this big scary Winter Soldier guy was broken; he was lost and just plain heart-breaking. Sure he could snap her neck with his shiny pinkie, but he didn’t seem to be ‘there’ anymore. Whoever this guy was, he wasn’t the killing machine from before. He was someone else. Maybe he was Barnes, maybe he was someone new, all she knew was he was cold looking, starving and looked like he hadn’t slept in days. As a child Darcy always had a soft spot for strays, and a stray person lost in the world was no different.

****

It was three days later, she had been debriefed and reassigned, her so called mission a bust in the eyes of Coulson and the upper level guys, but in the eyes of Steve Rogers it was a blessing. She’d talked to Bucky, he was thrilled with that, thrilled because when he had found him each and every time, Bucky or whoever he was now, ran. Darcy had made progress where Captain effing America couldn’t, and even though the board frowned upon her failure and all but patted her on the head as she was reassigned, she had held onto that as a sign that she wasn’t a failure. She was just not enough of a bot for that department was all. Heading home she was emotionally and physically exhausted, which explained the massive amounts of Chinese food currently on route to her place, and the ten dollars’ worth of candy she had acquired now stashed in her purse. It was the weekend and she had plans to veg and sleep, the fate of the free world be damned.

Except of course that’s not how it went, of course because she was Darcy, and just of course.

Instead she gets home to find ‘him’ there. In the dark. Inside her apartment, alone in the dark, in the dark!

“JESUS HAROLD CHRIST, DUDE, WHAT.” She screamed holding her chest as she flipped on her light, to find him sitting at her kitchen table.

He was silent, and soaked. It had been raining on and off for days, she wasn’t surprised by that. The ex-killing machine chilling in her kitchen however…

“Fucking hell, what the hell –why the hell – how the HELL are you even here?”

“You invited me…” he said lowly before looking up at her, his right eye was cut, there was a gash on his cheek. He looked even worse than before, if that was possible.

“Yeah, three days ago, DAYS AGO, and in the day light with people around and – “

She took a breath, maybe three before she spoke again.

“How did you get in? I’m twelve floors up!”

He just shrugged.

Because of course, why not. Stupid question, really.

Her place was untouched, he hadn’t helped himself to anything at all, even though judging by the puddle of drip under her chair he’d been there a while.

“Okay… So you came that’s I mean there are more polite ways but sure… I get it.” She was flustered now. What did she do in a situation like this?

She thought back to Thor and their first meeting. Minus the car and the electro shocks, they helped him, they helped.

She could help!

“There’s a shower if you … well you do need it I’m just saying… I can give you something to wear in the meantime, those … “she pointed to his clothes, soaked and torn as they were they were still his. “They need to be cleaned too… there’s food coming if you’re hungry –“and he was, she could see it in his face.

“I don’t trust you.” He said quietly. “But I do. This is strange.” He furrowed his brows at her, as if trying to make sense of it all inside his brain.

She just nodded, unsure of what to say, that was a first.

“You’re one of them, but not. You want to help me but I’ve given you no reason to do so… why?”

She shrugged.

“I just want to. If it was reversed I’d want someone to help me. You know?”

He seemed to consider that for a moment. He nodded.

It took a few minutes more before walked to the bathroom, shutting the door and bolting it, not really a surprise, she called through for him to hand over his clothes, before she found a few things belonging to a long forgotten ex that would do him in the time being. Oversized black sweats and a too-big-for-her zip hoodie.

He stayed for food, eyeing it suspiciously at first, but when she dug in, he saw no reason not to. They ate in silence, each glancing at the other from time to time, but other than that, nothing. Darcy fought every natural urge in her body to make small talk, to fill the dead air, but thought against it. Though she did offer him a smaller towel for his hair, mostly to stop the dripping. He had emerged from the bathroom clean and smelling like her soap, dressed in what she left outside the door for him, even with something as small as a warm wash, he looked like a different man.

“Have you called him?”

She knew who he meant, but she feigned ignorance until he spoke again.

“The man, Rogers?”

“Nope. Do you want me to? He wants to see you –“

“No… no I … no.” There was a panic to his voice that was new, it unsettled her.

“You know he won’t let anyone make you do –“

“It’s not that. Things…” he touched the side of his head, “things are muddled, him but not him, smaller, but not a child… then the fighting and then nothing… it’s strange.”

“Yeah I feel you, and I only saw photos, I can’t imagine how much that would fuck you up under normal circumstances, never mind –“she waved her hand at him. “It sucks, what happened to you…”

“It does?”

“It does. And Steve … the man, he just wants to help you. That’s all.”

“He wants his friend, the James Barnes.”

“Maybe.”

“What If I’m not that man, not anymore?”

“Then I’m sure whoever you are now, he’d still want to help. That’s just who he is.”

“And you?”

“Me?”

He wore what appeared to be a ghost of a smile if you looked hard enough, before it was gone as quickly as it appeared.

“You know nothing of me in any life and you helped me, you keep helping me and you don’t feed me to the wolves, you feed me food.”

“Well I guess that’s just the kind of person I am.”

“I like that, you haven’t turned me in to them … you could have.”

“I figure you’ll go when you’re ready, you aren’t exactly running from them are you?”

He shook his head.

“I could… I probably should.”

“But you don’t, why?”

He shrugged. But she knew he was hiding his real motive.

“You want him to come for you don’t you?”

He just looked at her then, the uncertainty etched through his pained face.

“Please let me call him, he’ll do whatever he can to make things right.”

“Things can never be right! I …the things I did… you wouldn’t understand.”

“No, you’re right I won’t, I could never. But they have people there, good people, that know how to help you.”

“It can’t be helped.” He all but pleaded. A plead for her to agree with him. That wasn’t going to happen.

“It maybe but you’re not an it, Bucky. You’re a you. And you deserve to be helped.”

This time he didn’t flinch at the name that was progress.

****

He bailed, unsurprisingly, though without his regular clothes, which meant he hadn’t gone far. Her assessment was right, the next night he was back, this time he waited outside her door for her. More progress, she thought. Again, they ate, and even talked a little. Well, she talked, he listened. But she was sure to sing the Cap’s praises as much as she could to him, anything to make him more comfortable.

It continued for a week, every evening he was there, each evening she noted more colour return to his face, his cuts were healing, he looked less like the walking dead and more like a man. On the eighth night, she presented him with a razor and some real clothes, in the hopes that he wouldn’t be offended, but she wanted to make him comfortable. It was just jeans and a warmer hoodie, with some socks and boots. She had guessed his size, but when he appeared with them on, she was happily surprised that she wasn’t too far off. He was still a little skinny for his normal build.

On the ninth night, she called Steve, at Bucky’s request.

On the twelfth night, he left with Steve, after they had had another of their almost silent conversations. She felt pride, but also fear, that maybe she’d never see him again. The nights they had spent together, in odd yet comfortable silence, she had come to look forward to them. She hated that her life was so lonely that the company of a brainwashed ex mercenary was preferred over anything else she had going on.

She tried to push him to the back of her mind in the days and weeks that followed. Steve had been beaming ever since the night they left, though she never asked how Bucky was, the relief on his face was enough for her to know that whatever was happening above her pay grade, it was something good.

****

She had been knee deep, literally at times, in their latest find for over a month before it happened – an ever expanding sort of goo of sorts that oozed from a rock found by some dude in Japan. It was now being investigated and categorized, either way it was ‘space related’ and thus send Jane into a starry eyed tizzy. She’d spent a week sleeping at the lab, but had a weekend off, a much needed one at that. So she dragged her sorry self, home, dreaming of a Netflix and takeout night. She’d just kicked off her shoes, shed her coat and took a deep breath when there was a knock at the door.

A knock.

At her door.

At eight thirty on a Friday.

She groaned, hoping it wasn’t Jane come to drag her back to the lab, though more than likely that’s exactly who it was.

“No, okay. No. I’m done for the week, boss lady, so done I just want to – “

It took her a fraction of a second to get it, because he didn’t look like ‘him’.

“You’re not Jane.”

“Uh, no… no I’m not.”

He stood tall, like, really tall. Taller than she remembered. His hair was cut, not like it had been in his photos, but almost. He wore a navy sweater and dark jeans, he looked good, hell, he looked damn good.

“Hi.” She all but stuttered, but it made him smile. “You knock now and everything.”

“Hi. I knock now and everything… ” He held up bags, more food. Now that made her smile.

“I found myself wanting to see… well to thank you.” Was that a blush? What was happening here?

She shook her head, moving so he could cross the threshold of the apartment.

“Steve’s been doing enough of that; there are only so many ‘unexpected gifts’ a girl can accept before it starts to look like he’s my pimp.”

That made him smile again, and damn he had a cute smile. It was rapidly moving to the top of the list of things she liked about him. It was starting to be a long list.

“He overcompensates; I think it stems from being the underdog for so long…”

There was a threat of awkward silence, but she filled it this time without fear.

“Are you –“

“Not really… but they’ve cleared the fog I guess? Everything else is a …work in progress they say, but I’m not so …muddled anymore, which is good. Good enough that I remembered my manners and wanted to thank the woman that saved me.”

Saved him.

Her?

“Thanking me with food, already a major point’s earner.”

“Good.” He said placing the bags on the table, before she could say anything else he was in her space, this time smelling like a damn spa.

A manly, manly spa.

“Darcy, what you did it was really brave and really amazing…I wasn’t –”

“No it wasn’t, it was just my job.”

He cocked an eyebrow at her, clearly not buying her bull.

“Without you I wouldn’t be here, I doubt I’d be much of anywhere right now, so thank you.”

She smiled, unable to stop her blush at the sincerity of his words. He and Steve had that whole earnest thing down pat, though his came with an undercurrent of something else.

He scratched the back of his ear, he was nervous! That put her at ease a little.

“Plates.” She began anything to fill the awkward and get some space between them. She crossed her tiny kitchen, and bent over for the plates, placing them on the counter in front of her, she felt him behind her, she could almost feel the heat that radiated off his body he was that close. She hadn’t heard him move across the tile, I guess that came with his former job description she thought absently as she felt his flesh hand ghost down her arm.

“I’m not so good at this…anymore,” he said quietly, before she turned to face him and he took a step back, before he got too far, she grabbed for his sweater. He might not have been a forward kind of guy, but she had always been a forward kind of girl, hell, it was how he ended up here in the very first place. “I thought about you every day… even when I probably shouldn’t have …” he expelled a breath, he was flustered, it was cute. “I’m not good at this…” he repeated.

“Me either, but who’s keeping score?”

He took a breath at that, before she pulled him that little bit closer, his mouth inches from hers.

“This is what you were aiming for right?”

He nodded dumbstruck before she stood on her tiptoes and kissed him softly.

 

Not so bad, for a scientist, she thought.  
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Any and all thoughts are welcome!


End file.
